Gasoline vapor generator

ABSTRACT

A FUEL VAPOR GENERATOR IN WHICH HIGHLY VOLATILE LIQUID FUEL SUCH AS GASOLINE IS CAUSED TO EVAPORATE BY MIXING IT WITH MOVING AIR TO PRODUCE A RESULTANT COMBUSTIBLE MIXTURE OF FUEL VAPOR AND AIR.

Feb. 23, 1971 N. A. HILL GASOLINE VAPOR GENERATOR Filed Nov. 22, 1968 INVENTOR 'NORMA ND A. HILL (and United States Patent 3,565,594 GASOLINE VAPOR GENERATOR Normand A. Hill, Canton, S. Dak. 57013 Filed Nov. 22, 1968, Ser. No. 778,193

Int. Cl. B01f 3/02 US. Cl. 48180 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A fuel vapor generator in which highly volatile liquid fuel such as gasoline is caused to evaporate by mixing it with moving air to produce a resultant combustible mixture of fuel vapor and air.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention is in the field of means for converting liquid fuel to vapor, the vapor being useful as a fuel source for many uses, one use, for example, is the heating of a building.

This invention is not in the field of lamps and burners of the type using a wick in which there is a flame at the wick.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART The use of absorbent materials for holding a liquid fuel in a desired position has been used in the case of wicks of lamps and burners. In such uses, there is no flame near the wick to cause an explosion, and the fuel used is not highly volatile like gasoline so that there is no danger of explosion.

Flaming devices cannot be used with gasoline because of the explosion problem and so a fine heating fuel like gasoline has never been in general use as a way to heat a home on building.

Heretofore the only available methods for the converting of liquid fuels to vapor have involved the application of heat to liquid fuel oils, causing them to vaporize, such methods have had many disadvantages, among which are the formation of tar and coke which obstructs the piping and outlet holes of burners and other consumption devices.

It has been proposed to transport vaporized fuel oil by means of compressed air fed to an injector and mixed with oil vapors at the output of a vaporizing apparatus so as to act as a carrier but this was not found practical because fuel oil easily condenses under the cooling influence of the compressed air and turns to droplets.

However, it is to be emphasized that the present invention is not in the field of fuel oils, but is for fuels of the type which vaporize at ordinary temperatures and pressures, which are petroleum derivatives such as gasoline and kerosene.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A source of petroleum derivative hydrocarbon fuel of a sort that is liquid at ordinary temperatures and pressures and which will vaporize more readily when the vapors leaving the liquid can admix with flowing oxygen, the fuel being, for example, gasoline or kerosene, a source of oxygen under pressure, an evaporation unit having a housing, a wick in the housing, means for delivering said liquid fuel from said source to said wick, said wick having an upper portion not immersed in liquid fuel, means for delivering oxygen under pressure into said housing for causing a flow of oxygen to pass by said wick out through said outlet, the flow of oxygen causing an evaporation of said fluid at the upper portion of the wick, the fuel vapor and oxygen thus created flowing together out of said outlet.

Patented Feb. 23, 1971 ice BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a side elevation of the liquid fuel generator system of this invention, certain parts being broken away and other parts being shown in section.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along the line 22 of FIG. 1.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The fuel vapor generator of this invention is generally indicated at 10 in FIG. 1 and has one or more evaporation units generally indicated at A and B, each having various parts which will now be described, for example, on only one of two substantially identical evaporation units.

And so the unit A will be seen to have a housing 24 having a hollow interior 26, the housing 24 having a wick 30 therein which can be of any one of many shapes and is shown having a vertical cylindrical portion 40 covered across its top by a horizontal portion 42.

The wick 30 is made of any suitable absorbent material and is disposed with its upper portion 42 spaced downwardly from the underside of the top wall 50 of the housing whereby a perforated sprinkler pipe 60 having perforations in its underside is disposed bet-ween the upper portion 42 of the wick and the top 50 of the housing, the perforated sprinkler pipe 60 delivering through its perforations a supply of petroleum deriva tive hydrocarbon fuel in liquid state which sprinkles down on to the wick 30.

Any fuel which the wick does not absorb falls down into the lower part of the housing 24 and its upper level can be seen at 62. The body of the non-absorbed liquid is shown at 64 and is in contact with the wick, whereby the wick by absorbing the body of the non-absorbed liquid 64 is assured of continual saturation, regardless of the evenness of flow from the sprinkler pipe 60.

As thus described, the sprinkler pipe 60 can be called herein also by a general numeral 70 to be an immediate source of the said fuel.

The wick 30 has an upper portion which is not disposed in the liquid fuel 64.

The housing 24 has an oxygen inlet disposed above the level of the body of the liquid fuel 64 and the housing 24 has an outlet 92 through which oxygen can flow outwardly to a pipe 94.

The interior of the housing 24 is open in an area between the wick 30' and the path of flow of the oxygen, such path of flow being from the oxygen inlet 90 to the outlet 92, whereby liquid fuel on the wick 30 is caused to evaporate at the upper unimmersed portion of the wick.

The fuel vapor thus formed at the wick 30- flows out of the outlet 92 with the rush of oxygen passing through the hollow interior 26.

The inlet 90 receives oxygen from a pipe which latter can be referred to generally as the immediate source 102 of oxygen pressure.

It will be seen that the word oxygen is used, although the gas coming through the pipe 100 is preferably air of which the major part, of course, is oxygen.

The evaporation unit B is identical to the evaporation 3 unit A and so its parts will not be described, except to say that its inlet pipe 100" is a counterpart of the pipe 100, each of the pipes 100 and 100' having in them a shut-off valve 110 and 112 respectively, each pipe 100 and 100 leading from a common pipe 130.

Evaporation unit B has its pipe 100 entering from its left side, as shown, instead of its right side, but this is of no significance. The outlet pipe from the unit B s shown at 94' and the pipes 94 and 94 each have a shutoff valve 132 and 134 in them respectively, and each of the pipes 94 and 94 lead to a common pipe 140.

Pipe 140 leads to a pressure regulator 150 which has an outlet 160 which can be connected to a unit, not shown, of any kind which could use combustible fuel, such as commercial, industrial, or residential heating or internal combustion engine operation, or any one of many other uses.

Instead of sending the entire supply of fuel coming through the pipe 140 directly toward the outlet 160, it may be desirable to place some of it or all of it in storage, and for this purpose, a line is shown at 170 having in it a shut-off valve 172, the line 170 leading from the pipe 140 to a tank 200 for storage. An outlet pipe 210 leads from the tank 200 through a shut-off valve 212 to a pipe 214 connected to the pipe 140.

A pressure gauge assembly is shown at 250 mounted on the tank 200, and a safety pressure relief valve assembly operating automatically is shown at 252 on the tank 200.

Although the pipe 100 or the pipe 100 can be called the immediate source of oxygen 102, the initial inlet of air to the system is shown at 300 which is the entrance to an air compressor 310 connected by a pipe 312 having a shut-ofl valve 314 in it to a compressed air tank 320 having both a pressure gauge assembly 322 and an automatic safety pressure relief valve 324.

An outlet pipe 330 for compressed air has in it a shut-off valve 332 and is connected to a pipe 340 having in it a shut-off valve 344, the pipe 340 leading to a pressure regulator 350 which can be of the set or variable type.

A line 360 connected to the line 312 on the compressor side of the valve 314 serves as a by-pass line and connects to the line 340 so that, when desired, with the valve 362 in the line 360 open, air can be routed directly from the compressor 310 to the line 340 without going through the tank 320.

A line 380 leads from the pressure regulator 350 to the pipe 130, later described.

Although the pipe 60 has been designated an immediate source of the said fuel and given the general numeral 70 to indiacte that it is the immediate source, yet the primary source of the liquid fuel is a liquid fuel pulling line 500 connected to a primary source of liquid fuel, not shown, the line 500 delivering the fuel through its shut-off valve 502 to a liquid fuel and compressed air tank generally indicated at 600 and having a hollow interior 602 the upper portion of which normally has in it a mixture of the vapor of the said fuel in the area disposed above the upper level 610 of a body 620 of the said fuel in liquid state which occupies the lower portion of the liquid fuel and compressed air tank 600. In the part 630 of the tank 600 which is disposed above the level 610 is also air, which is compressed air which enters the tank 600 through a compressed air line 634 from a pressure regulator 640 of the set or variable type, which latter is set for a higher pressure than the pressure regulator 350 by only about one pound in order that the line 634 has a sufficient pressure to force the body of liquid 620 out of the tank 600 through an outlet pipe 650 having in it a shut-ofl? valve 652.

The line 650 leads on from the shut-off valve 652 through a float tank 670 and to a float valve body 672 of a float valve assembly 674. Pivotally attached to the float valve body 674 is a float 678 which floats on the upper surface of liquid fuel 680 in the tank 670.

The level of liquid in the tank 670 is controlled by a pair of transfer pipes 690 and 692, which latter extend from the inside of the float tank 670 over to the inside of the housing 24 of the evaporation unit A. The lower one of the transfer pipes 690 extends from a lower part of the tank 670 to a position opening upon the interior of the housing 24 at a point below a lowermost point of the level 62 of the top of the liquid 64 of the housing 24.

The float valve assembly 674 controls the position of the upper surface 62 so that it varies within a short distance so as to be always below the oxygen inlet and yet also always below the upper transfer pipe 692 which extends from the top of the tank 670 over to an entrance to the housing 24 which is well above the uppermost position of the surface 62 of the liquid fuel there- A pipe 750 leads from the valve body 672 over to a T joint 752. A pipe 60 earlier described and used for sprinkling leads from the T joint 752 over into the housing 24 for sprinkling, as earlier described.

A sprinkler pipe 60 leads from the T joint 752 over and through the housing 24 of the evaporation unit B, the pipe 60' being perforated in those portions that are disposed above the wick 40' of the evaporation unit B.

The upper parts of the pipes 60 and 60 are on the same level so as to cause flow through them to be equalized.

It is significant that the pressure of the oxygen flowing through the oxygen inlet 90 is sufliciently low that danger of explosion is eliminated. In other words, if the oxygen were to flow into the housing 24 in a strong blast, there might be danger of explosion, in my opinion. For this reason, the oxygen is caused to waft into and through the housing 24 under very light pressure.

However, it is to be understood that the pressures generated to the outlet 92 from the housing 24 are sufficient that the pressures between the outlet 92 and the ultimate outlet 160 are such that a flame at the outlet 160 burning there could not travel up-stream against the pressure of the admixing hydrocarbon fuel and oxygen or air flowing through the system from the housing outlet 92.

The pressure regulator is located closer to the outlet than the position of the connection 900 of the pipe 214 with the pipe 140. A conventional flame arresting automatic valve assembly 910, also called a flame arrestor, is located between the pressure regulator and the outlet 160.

The flame arrestor 910 is of any one of many conventional types and is only generally claimed herein as a part of the total vapor generator and so is believed not to require specific detailing. Such arrestors have a sensor portion 912 on the outlet 160 side of the main system for sensing the approach of flame and an automatic valve assembly portion 914 on the main system side of the sensor portion 912, and which has a valve shutting off the line 140 automatically in response to the sensing of flame by the sensor portion 912, thereby protecting the remainder of the vapor generator system from explosion.

A balance line 950 extends from the interior of the housing 24 of the evaporation unit A to the housing 24' of the evaporation unit B.

In operation, the balance line 950 causes the upper level of the liquid in the housings 24 and 24- to be at the same level. For this reason, only one single float valve assembly 674 is needed to take care of the two units A and B. A shut-off valve 960 in the balance line 950 will allow the evaporation unit A to be operated independently of unit B.

I claim:

1. A gasoline vapor generator comprising: a source of liquid gasoline, an evaporation unit comprising a housing having an outlet and having an oxygen inlet and partially filled with said liquid gasoline, an absorbent element in said housing having one end partially immersed in said gasoline and absorbing gasoline into its other end from said one end whereby gasoline evaporates from said other end, means for delivering said liquid gasoline from said source to said housing at a rate by which said absorbent element need only be partly immersed in said liquid gasoline, means for delivering oxygen under pressure into said housing so that it reaches the area of said evaporation end of said element and admixes with said evaporating gasoline, said oxygen and said evaporated gasoline flowing out through said outlet, there being no flame in said housing for preventing explosion.

2. The generator of claim 1 in which said gasoline delivering means delivers gasoline directly to the unimmersed portion of said element.

3. The combination of claim 2 in which a storage means is connected to the outlet for the storage of the product vapor from said outlet.

4. The combination of claim 3 in which a pressure regulator is disposed in connection with said storage means.

References Cited MORRIS O. WOLK, Primary Examiner R. E. SERWIN, Assistant Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 

